I remember reading the Fantastic Four comic where The Thing, Human Torch and Reed Richards were first confronted with Malice, a sexy super villianess who was really working them over. In one scene, Daredevil shows up to help and mentions that they are fighting an “amorphous” blob. Ben Grimm then says something to the effect of, “I’ve been around Reed long enough to know that amorphous means shapeless, but that lady ain’t shapeless.”
That’s where I learned the word amorphous. I learned quite a few words from reading comic books. Which is why this study didn’t surprise me:
Professor Carol Tilley, from the department of library and information science, said that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books.
She said there was evidence that they increased their vocabulary and instilled a love of reading.
She said: “A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words.
“Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.”
She added: “Although they’ve long embraced picture books as appropriate children’s literature, many adults – even teachers and librarians who willingly add comics to their collections – are too quick to dismiss the suitability of comics as texts for young readers.
“Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent. It’s up to the reader’s personality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, another genre.
“If reading is to lead to any meaningful knowledge or comprehension, readers must approach a text with an understanding of the relevant social, linguistic and cultural conventions.
“And if you really consider how the pictures and words work together to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature.”
I currently have about 10,000 comic books in my basement. I look forward to sharing them with my children.
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